


The righteous hunt has just begun

by devilcode



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Gen, Hubert's convinced he has no trauma whatsoever, HubertWeek2020, Pre-Canon, developing acrophobia, no beta we die like Glenn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:47:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26828344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilcode/pseuds/devilcode
Summary: “Lord Arundel” lays out some ground rules.For Hubert Week, Day 1: Forbidden/Heights
Relationships: Edelgard von Hresvelg & Hubert von Vestra
Comments: 6
Kudos: 27
Collections: Hubert Week 2020





	The righteous hunt has just begun

**Author's Note:**

> Hubert Week, day 1: Forbidden/ **Heights**
> 
> _Vicious thoughts are stirring  
>  And I hunger for their power  
> Just to taste the opportunity  
> To watch the elders cower_

**Guardian Moon, 1175**

The footfalls faded down the hall; the harsh sounds of armor reverberating off marble and and glass chased the rug-muffled steps. One breath, two—and Hubert darted forward from the servant’s passage, his already-long legs able to bridge the gap from the passage to the rug to silence his own steps. Even without turning back, he knew Edelgard had to hop that same distance. It really shouldn’t make his heart speed so; they had at least seven more seconds before the next patrol rotated through, their distant ring of armor still well around the next corner. His worry proved unnecessary as no clack of shoes followed him, and together they stole down the branching hall.

A hall that was conspicuously unguarded, just as Edelgard promised it would be. Just out of sight from the previous hallway, the red-veined white marble floor abruptly gave way to more practical stone and metal. The winding steps stretched three men wide, and just shy of being able to effectively swing a sword, spiralling up towards a section of the palace’s yawning roof. Even at the base of the stairway, winter’s chill haunted the air, the faint draft seeming trying to push them back itself. Hubert grit his teeth against the creeping chill as they climbed. Their steps gradually favored speed over silence the higher their approach, and it wasn’t long before Hubert, panting, pressed his shoulder against the heavy door to leverage it open.

The moon was scarcely more than a sliver tonight. Even without approaching the battlements, the view was enough to steal one’s breath; clusters of tiny lights marked the manors lining the rolling hills in approach to the palace, giving away to the sprawling, star-like speckling of Enbarr, glimmering so faintly in the dark. Even in the dim moonlight, the harbor shone without a single cloud to dampen it, it’s dark and shimmering water as ominous as it was picturesque. 

But winter’s howling wind ruined the perfect still scene, cutting beneath Hubert’s coat and biting his ears and neck. He shrunk into his shoulders instinctively, stepping aside to let Edelgard take the lead. The girl stalked forward heedless of the cold and the dark figure waiting for them at the battlements, her spine iron and head held higher than a girl of mere thirteen should have been capable.

Her hands shook, where they were curled into fists. Hubert doubted it was the cold. Edelgard didn’t seem to feel cold as keenly as he did, these days.

He trailed after her, forcing his own posture to straighten and tucking his hands behind his back. Now wasn’t the time to show weakness, or apprehension, or fury. Even if he doubted his ability to help the latter.

Volkhard von Arundel turned to look at Edelgard as she stepped up to the battlements, his long hair floating ethereally on the winds. If he minded her glare, it showed not on his face. The moonlight only faintly lit the man’s features, but Hubert felt the way his gaze swept up from Edelgard to him.

He’d seen a wolf, once, while evading his father’s soldiers in the wooded hills of northern Hresvelg. There was something wrong with those eyes—cold, predatory, belittling. The ice in Hubert’s spine couldn’t be attributed to winter, this time, nor immediately burned away by his quiet fury.

“The eldest Vestra boy, if I’m not mistaken.” Volkhard’s slow, precise speech seemed almost leisurely. Like he had all the time in the world to circle his prey. “I believe I did not ask for his presence, my niece.”

“I am _not_ your niece. Where I go, Hubert goes.”

“Ah, but you are, now and forever more, dear Edelgard.” The man took a languid step forward, his eyes yet to stray from Hubert’s. Hubert held that too-piercing gaze steadily, the darkness hiding anything he might glean from Volkhard’s face, and clenched his fingers behind his back to steady his nerves. “And as your uncle, it is my responsibility to protect you from liabilities, is it not?”

“No. That’s _Hubert’s_ job. He’s sworn to me. He’ll help us.”

That stopped the lord’s advance. The wind mellowed in a brief respite. The oppressive silence made Volkhard’s attention that much more unbearable.

“Help us… how, dear niece?”

Hubert faintly heard the creak of Edelgard’s gloves as tension ran through her small shoulders.

“ _Stop calling me that._ ”

“And your temper has recovered with your strength in this last year, I see.” The poise in Volkhard’s voice had dulled into something vaguely scornful, even as his persistent stare never wavered. Hubert’s brow furrowed into a glare before he could stop himself; a smile ghosted on Volkhard’s face in response to the challenge. What gall. What audacity. To call Edelgard their greatest creation, their grand experiment, their path to the future, and then belittler her incessantly. “And unbecoming of Adrestia’s princess. A habit I will have to break, I suppose. Answer the question.”

“I’ll need someone I can trust, won’t I? I can’t be everywhere and do everything. House Vestra’s already going to train him in everything he needs to be the Emperor’s right hand. He can move about while eyes are on me. And if the Imperial princess was dodging her retainer all the time for secret meetings, people would get suspicious.”

The man hummed a vague note, his languid steps beginning to circle Edelgard as he approached Hubert. A wolf’s eyes, Hubert thought again. Eyes without hunger, calculating another animal’s threat. His evaluating gaze swept up and down.

Hubert turned to face Volkhard as he came to a stop on his other side. “If you are truly so concerned about avoiding suspicion, little Edelgard, you _will_ address me as your uncle. The boy knows, then?”

“Yes.” Her voice slipped, there. From iron into ice, and Hubert didn’t need to watch her to know her ghosts were in the forefront of her mind again. “He knows everything. And he still stands with me.” Volkhard clicked his tongue.

“I _told you_ not to speak of such things to anyone, child. Need I remind you, without us, you have no power. Without us, you would be a doll atop a throne, the same as your father, only a bloodline with a watery Crest to your name. Without us, you are _nothing_.”

It was Hubert’s gloves that creaked behind his back, this time, fists clenching around the simmering rage in his veins. How bold of the vile butcher, to claim everything he’s carved away to be something grateful for. Something must have shown on Hubert’s face, as Volkhard’s ghostly smile quirked up at the corner.

The demon in Lord Arundel’s flesh breathed deep, sighing grandly. “Rebellion, and a liability. Two birds with one stone.”

Before Hubert knew it, fire flared in his scalp. Volkhard’s hand twisted viciously in Hubert’s hair and Edelgard screamed as the world spun about him; cold stone pressed against the back of his calves and his vision and gravity skewed sideways as the man thrust him through the battlement’s crenel, suspended by his hair.

“No, stop it!”

The wind howled again, but he scarcely heard it over the roar of his own heart. Hubert’s hands scrabbled for Volkhard’s arm, clamping around his wrist for dear life, his feet kicking in a futile attempt to hook around the edge of the merlons. Anything to hold him up, to pull him in. The man wearing Volkhard’s flesh was speaking again, but Hubert could hardly hear it over someone’s screams. His own?

“If you _dare_ lay a hand on me, child, I will drop him. Are we clear?” A chuckle, cruel and terrible and stripped of humanity; suddenly, the one corner of Hubert’s mind not paralyzed with terror realized, his hands were no longer grasping at Lord Arundel’s sleeved arm. His fingers clutched at a gauntlet darker than night itself and frozen even through Hubert’s gloves. “Good. Now, drop your toy weapon, child.” 

Hubert thought he heard a metallic clatter of the scream of the wind, and his lady’s voice so achingly robbed of its prior iron. Her exact words hung just beyond the edge of Hubert’s hearing, his world narrowed by terror and the fingers twisted cruelly in his hair. His heels couldn’t find purchase at the edge of the parapet, and his arms burned with the effort to fight gravity’s clawing grasp.

“I thought you’d be of use to us, boy, but not to so effectively make a point. Now, little Edelgard. I will not have everything I’ve strove for compromised by your irreverence. When I tell you to do something, you do it. When I forbid something, you respect it—you as well, boy.

“You will address me as uncle, Edelgard. You will show me deference. You will tell no other of our plans. And just this once, I will be gracious; so long as he is useful to us, I’ll allow you your pet. But should either of you make me regret this—”

Those cruel fingers let go. Hubert yelped and found renewed strength in his arms to cling to that gauntleted arm.

“—I will revoke this privilege.”

Hubert’s scalp burned again and the world spun. He hit the winter-chilled bricks hard enough to steal his breath. Edelgard was at his side in an instant, pulling him close. All he could do was lay there, shaking, desperating sucking at air to appease his panicked heart.

“Do I make myself absolutely clear?”

He could properly see the demon, now; too pallid flesh, blank eyes, bleached-bone hair, and clad in black armor. No, not a wolf. Something worse. Malice incarnate, like a corpse crawled from the earth. The devil that plucked apart his lady’s family like feathers from a slain fowl, adorning his own mantle with them.

“Y-yes.” She was so quiet. Too quiet, like in the wake of the nightmares that dimmed her spirit. Hubert hated it. “...Yes, uncle.” 

“Good. And you, boy?”

Burn in hell, he wanted to scream. _Yes, sir,_ he tried to say, but Hubert’s breath wasn’t yet back in his chest, and the tremors of residual terror still wracking his body would likely have stilled his voice anyway. Apparently, jerking his head and gasping pathetically like a fish was enough to satisfy the demon.

“How unexpectedly productive tonight has been, if far from plan. We’ll reschedule this meeting for next moon, shall we? You will be the greatest emperor Adrestia will have ever known, but you have such a long way to go. Better master your emotions, next time… dear niece.”

There was a dark flash; the magic rippled through the air and across Hubert’s skin, and the demon was gone. Edelgard clutched him closer, pressing her forehead against his shoulder, and this close, he could hear her breath shuddering.

He didn’t know how long they stayed like that, clutching one another, waiting out their trembling hearts. Exhaustion seeped into his bones in adrenaline's wake, the electric relief of being _alive_ stained with a dawning dread. His breath came to him steadily once more before Edelgard whispered to him. Hubert’s trembling still hadn’t stopped, but from stress or cold, he knew not.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I should never have dragged you into this.”

One of his shaking hands settled on her forearm; Hubert tried to squeeze, but his grip had no more strength. “N-no. This was my choice. It doesn’t matter what they do to me.” What was this threat, in light of what his lady had endured? What her siblings had? A threat was all it was. That’s all. Hubert only had to remember that. She’d endured so much more. “I’m okay, Lady Edelgard.” He swallowed thickly. “You won’t face them alone anymore. I promise.”

For a long moment, Edelgard didn’t move; then, she nodded weakly against his shoulder.

“We… should go back now.”

Edelgard pulled away, rising to grab her dagger from where it had fallen by the battlements. His tense muscles screamed with ache as Hubert tried to stand; his limbs still shook so terribly, and his knees buckled the first time he put weight onto them. Growling, cursing his weakness under his breath, he tried again and found Edelgard tucking herself under his arm halfway through.

“I… I can stand.”

“I know.”

Edelgard was deceptively strong for her size. Despite the difference in their age, and her lack of growth this last year, his lady had no trouble supporting his weight when Hubert reluctantly leaned into her. How pathetic. He’d come to support her in dealing with her tormentor, and yet…

Still, he was grateful for the arm about his waist, steadying his steps. The battlements were several feet away, enough so that Hubert could almost lay flat between where he stood and the edge of the palace, but… it was too close. Far too close. No matter how he beat the factual distance into his mind, logic buckled beneath fear. Glancing at the battlements was a mistake, and his legs threatened to collapse again to the safety of the ground—but Edelgard wouldn’t let him, adjusting her grip as she guided them to the stairs.

Even those stone steps, spiraling into the dimly lit dark, made his head swim in the wake of his experience. Hubert must have shuddered, because his lady squeezed his waist gently.

“We’ll take it slow.”

To hell with that bastard. Rending the Imperial family asunder in his own pursuits. Haunting Lady Edelgard’s bloodied dreams. Preying on Hubert’s weakness to reduce him into such a wreck. He had to be better. Fearless, merciless, cunning. If he was to have any hope of helping Edelgard turn her situation around…

He had to be like that demon. Superior to him. The rats’ arrogance would give them some cover to maneuver, but… Not once, in the dozens of ways Hubert imagined this meeting going, had he imagined that the aid he'd so desperately pledged to Edelgard would be used against her. They were still children, plotting a gambit in the shadow of giants.

There was no room for error. No time to be children. Not now, not ever.

This wouldn't happen again. He wouldn't let those monsters make him Edelgard's liability.

And one day, he’ll burn them all.

**Author's Note:**

> Somewhere along the way my brain decided giving my Hubert Week submissions titles and lyric snippets from Red Water Dreams was a good idea.
> 
> All my fics so far are about about characters as children. What's up with that?


End file.
